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The Gates of Day 

A Study in Sleeping and Waking 

Mary H. Peabody 




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The Gates of Day 



The Gates of Day 

A Study in Sleeping and Waking 



by 

Mary H. Peabody 




New York 

The Trow Press 

1912 



*K 






C opyright, 1912, by 
Mary H. Peabody 



©CI.A330353 



PART I 

Introduction 



How beautiful this Night! the balmiest sigh 

Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear 

Were discord to the speaking quietude 

That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven s ebon vault 

Studded with stars immeasurably bright 

Through which the moons unclouded grandeur rolls 

Seems like a canopy which love has spread 

Above the sleeping world. 

Shelley. 

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore nature's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast. 

Shakespeare. 

Lo, in the sanctuaried East, 

Day, a dedicated priest 

In all his robes pontifical exprest, 

Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, 

From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, 

Yon orbed sacrament confest 

Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn. 

Francis Thompson. 



And the Evening and the Morning were the first day. 



PART I 

Introduction 

The Gates of Day 
Now blessings rest on him that first invented sleep. 

FOR the grace and power of sleep when 
the round of mortal pleasure and care 
brings us to its enchanted moment, the heart 
of man repeats the thanksgiving of Sancho 
Panza. 

That there should be such a moment is a 
wonder beyond words. Dominant among 
natural changes it stands between the worlds 
in which we dwell, the world of sleep and the 
world of waking, and with authority com- 
pels our obedience. A point of transition, 
by its quality and rank apart from all things 
else, it marks the rhythm of life within our 
universal horizon, as passing and repassing, 
sleeping and waking, in darkness and light 
we pursue the path of immortal destiny. 

In this alternate passage to which we are 
bound sleep lies in the background, a reserve 
[i] 



The Gates of Day 

of comfort and protection, the resource first 
and last to which we turn for relief when 
the day and its energy can carry us no far- 
ther. In the plan of life it is intended to 
be invariable, and since it comes of itself and 
is an involuntary and welcome process con- 
tinuing in all forms of Nature and life from 
birth to death, why should it be a subject to 
command attention and study? 

When sleep presses, give us a degree of 
quiet and comfort or let us have simply 
respite from demand, and straightway Na- 
ture herself leads to that dim verge where 
with a breath we forget the whole wide 
earth. 

But to sleep is not to get knowledge, for 
Nature is not truly simple. Under ordinary 
movement she pursues some great design, and 
while with one hand she leads us, with the 
other she covers our eyes. We follow, for 
we love the leading, but at heart we con- 
sider and rebel; and because it is our divine 
prerogative and infinite wish to know our- 
selves, we resort to watchfulness and obser- 
vation that we may discover our Mother's in- 
tentions and learn what she is in reality 
doing with us. 

[2] 



The Gates of Day 

In this our reward is great, for through 
our glimpses of Nature's law and method we 
discover some things concerning ourselves 
in this planetary kingdom; we perceive our 
power to look inward toward life and out- 
ward to creation, to read in darkness as in 
light, and to recognize the magnitude and 
magnificence of our relation to the Power 
that set us here and makes us kin to things 
which though unborn are yet to be — and in 
the light of this wide relationship we are 
led to make a study of sleep. 

On the scientific side sleep presents itself 
as an intangible, elusive phase of existence, 
and we have much to learn; but apart from 
the teaching of science, each has his own ex- 
perience, and as we confess the magic and 
heavenliness of sleep, we see how it impresses 
us with a sense of far-reaching life. We 
wake, we sleep, we know that sleep is the 
opposite from conditions of day, and grow 
aware that while our day-life is a progress 
and mystery none can fully solve, in our 
sleep we skirt the outposts of regions still 
more veiled and unexplored, which to the 
mind are fascinating and to the heart al- 
luring — for all things that touch us are 
[3] 



The Gates of Day 

of interest, and sleep is an intimate proc- 
ess. 

The coming of sleep is a season that holds 
as its essential quality a sense of release, 
beneficent and peculiar. At its approach we 
prepare to exchange our existences, one for 
the other — to yield our hold on day and be- 
gin our other journey. And in this nightly 
departure, even as in death, we go alone. 
At least, whatever forces guide us as we fall 
asleep, to our consciousness it seems that 
whether we will or not, all souls, nearest, 
farthest, friend or foe are alike shut out 
from sharing our passage. 

In this movement of life we seem to 
traverse solitude inscrutable. Limitation and 
boundary give way, vastness is about us and 
we grow aware of freedom, individual and 
absolute. It is at first a conscious transition, 
a vibration of being within yet without, that 
in long rhythms overpowers us. The din 
of thought subsides, nerve-tension loosens, 
the gate of being swings, and in the most 
unspeakable of all moments habitually re- 
current, with every sense consoled, we hover 
between the worlds and are gone. 

In this our will and desire, at one with 
[4] 



The Gates of Day 

Nature's, is but to go. And it is in contrast 
to this natural impulse that we realize the 
other side — the strain and distress of the 
whole man when, in the name of duty, by 
the bedside or at some lonely post, sleep 
holds a penalty and must not be allowed; 
for in face of that subtle thrall of sleep, that 
rurgency of the soul for relief from exhaus- 
tion here and for permission to enter into 
joy on its own side of life, man's effort for 
resistance is heroism. Peace, peace to those 
who, watching while others slept, have been 
overcome. 

This life-movement of sleeping and wak- 
ing reveals great contrasts. By day we re- 
peat experience, grow into habits of reason 
and judgment and so gather knowledge. 
The earth as we know it to-day is mainly the 
earth of to-morrow, and in our investigations 
of Nature we are able to compare things one 
with another as a means of reaching con- 
clusions. But the world of night and sleep 
yields to us nothing so stable. Our night ex- 
periences are singular and variable. We re- 
call distances greater than those of day, col- 
ors marvelous, fleeting, and interchanging, 
with faces, figures, and landscapes, often 

[5] 



The Gates of Day 

exalted and befriending, but evanescent. 
Moreover, details repeat themselves or not, 
and who shall say what, at night, shall be 
the outcome of the hour? 

In regard to this we feel assured that 
somewhere there is something that some time 
we shall know. This assurance comes to us 
through our thought of life as a whole : for 
by nature we hold within us a sense of recog- 
nition that reaches beyond day, beyond earth; 
that takes into account all things of night and 
day, of life here and beyond, and rests in 
the certainty of knowledge that by growth 
shall be attained. Meantime there are those 
with whom the question does not fail to arise 
whether the world to which we travel nightly 
may not in reality be the outer sphere of the 
world to which we go when, at death, we 
leave 

— the warm precincts of the cheerful day 
and pass to that Day, more cheerful still, 
that we now call Heaven. In any case, 
through the revelations of our own experi- 
ence we are led to believe our life invisible 
to be our greater life and to realize that in 
sleep if we do not cross we at least seem to 
reach its border. 

[6] 



The Gates of Day 

In a study of that nightly crossing and re- 
turn we see that the vocation of sleep is for 
present earthly support and restoration. We 
go that we may return to this arena to pur- 
sue our destiny and develop the power with- 
in us. Alternation alone makes possible this 
race to our human goals, and the replenish- 
ing of sleep saves us, body and soul. 

In this majestic progress sleep is our time- 
keeper. At its call we lay down day's labor, 
at its departure again we take day's care. 
Still we are not without authority, for while 
this order into which we are born is a sign 
of the law that dwells with the Cause of 
life and includes us in its scope, our sleep is 
not wholly beyond our control. In any hour, 
at call of need it may come, a solace and 
support to life flagging under stress of ex- 
istence. Childhood and age sleep often; ill- 
ness is assuaged by sleep irregularly as con- 
ditions may allow and is welcomed as the 
great physician; the South has its life-saving 
siesta, while as wise ones know, in ordinary 
weariness of mind or body a sense of res- 
toration and stimulus that no other treatment 
of ourselves can bestow comes through the 
power to go sound asleep and have complete 

[7] 



The Gates of Day 

forgetfulness, if only for five minutes of a 
crowded hour. With practice this command 
of sleep can be gained. A mental decision 
to sleep and to waken after a certain num- 
ber of minutes or of hours will rouse us at 
the instant, after any period for which we 
may have given orders. 

Yet in the cosmic progression sleep has its 
place. Not at haphazard does it fulfill its 
office with us, but tenderly it passes back and 
forth upon its own arc of service between its 
gates, the Evening and the Morning- — the 
Evening, life's mysterious prelude ; the Morn- 
ing, its announcement of presence and power 
— for " Through Darkness cometh Light." 

In the morning the Sun, foretold by his 
own light, ascends from the Eastern horizon. 
Energy floods the earth, glory increases, the 
ways of nature and man are revealed, and 
the crescendo of day gathers us once more 
into its intensity. 

Reaching his great meridian the Sun 
ranges west and is gone. Twilight deepens, 
lines merge into shadow, darkness, " most 
venerable thing," is upon us, and the hour 
calls to the laying down of human power 
with trust in Power Divine. Even in the 

[8] 



The Gates of Day 

rush of life, when hours have small signifi- 
cance and we cannot listen, change enfolds 
us. Influences gentle and tender wait and 
follow while feet turn homeward; for with 
us and with Nature it is even-song — led by 
the spirit of night. 

In this gracious contrast these two great 
movements of light, Night and Day, stand 
apart; and wonderful is the garb they wear 
— a panoply of signs — Sun, star, and 
shadow, darkness, song, and silence. Be- 
holding them in their dramatic beauty, vivid 
conceptions of the relation of the soul to Na- 
ture arise within us, and Night and Morning, 
Life at rest and Life awakening, as beings 
symbolic and celestial have been in all time 
an inspiration to creative genius. Poetry and 
prose, music, painting, and sculpture repeat 
the theme. The heart responds and the be- 
loved figures, in unfailing return, vigilant and 
benignant, as doorkeepers in our divine or- 
der of being, by their spiritual quality re- 
mind us of the greatness of human destiny. 



[9] 



PART II 



Where there is no vision the people perish. 

Isaiah. 



Those shadowy recollections, 

Which be they what they may. 

Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 

Are yet a master light of all our seeing. 

Wordsworth. 



PART II 

THE morning brings light and from our 
wonted or enforced point of view we 
look out to it. Draped in gray or in flame 
and amber, the new day is beauty; but in 
how far does this loveliness give answer to 
morning need? What is there to reach out 
to that can strengthen and inspire us? In 
itself beauty is neither an end nor an origin. 
It is rather a means of expression, a sign 
by the way, an indication of the Source from 
which it springs and of the end toward 
which that original impulse would move: 
and through that inner relation of its own 
the very aspect of beauty by its distance and 
completeness has at times a saddening influ- 
ence, as if it were something we are not and 
cannot be. 

We may not think of this clearly, but as 
we face the issues of life which are more to 
us than anything we see, we are aware of 
an instinctive desire to relate what lies out- 
side in some close way with what we feel 
within and really are. We realize, though 
[13] 



The Gates of Day 

perhaps in a vague way, that to satisfy us 
the beauty of the world must awaken more 
than delight and charm of sense. It must 
illuminate some meaning and lead from the 
distraction of form back to Cause — as a 
messenger from the Center of our being sent 
to stand in the day and tell us of something 
greater still. That something greater of 
which beauty speaks, is indeed nothing less 
than the very Whole to which we belong 
and of which we are a living part : and it is 
the entreaty of the soul that we shall not 
look one way only, but that we shall see 
things outward as the translation of life it- 
self, and in our fresh morning hour be led 
by the light of day to look deep and com- 
prehend our scope of being which includes 
Nature and Spirit. 

This is the vision that keeps us from per- 
ishing. In our sleeping and waking it is 
this reality of life, as a personal message 
with which we are concerned. It is we, who 
when sleep is gone hear the challenge of day 
and with energy new-born go on to those 
imperious hours of the Sun that last night 
we called to-morrow; and if the sleep that lies 
behind holds a secret that might enrich our 
[14] 



The Gates of Day 

store of intelligence in the pursuance of af- 
fairs and cast a light on the meaning of life, 
it should be ours. 

We pause to think. The sleep from which 
we have arisen although a mystery is not a 
blank. In our sleep we lived, we thought, 
we realized, and waking we remember. 
Where have we been and what have we done 
and what can we tell of the journey? We 
recall the far country of the night. Not 
cessation of life was it, but change of ac- 
tivities, with a sense of space beyond bound- 
aries and with dreams and dreams. The 
story is fascinating yet not always happy to 
recount; it may even be a sorry tale of ill- 
adventured happenings ; and because of this 
variation in the character of night experi- 
ence, the question rises whether in sleep we 
have control over ourselves and our condi- 
tions — for where we have authority we have 
responsibility and consequent need of wis- 
dom. In this we have our own life to ex- 
amine and simple study may lead toward 
knowledge. 

To begin then with our dreams. As 
they come and go they are good and bad. 
" Sweet dreams, " says one, choosing — a 
[15] 



The Gates of Day 

lovely wish, for in their difference of qual- 
ity dreams have power and in the best inter- 
ests of life it is advisable that they should 
bring and leave with us the impress of har- 
mony. As in 1643, wrote Sir Thomas 
Browne, there are " Sweet dreams of flying, 
of limpid fountains, smooth waters, white 
vestments and fruitful green trees which are 
the visions of healthful sleeps " ; dreams that 
are set with light and color and rare mystic 
faces, that are remembered as sheer loveli- 
ness illuminating some aspiration of the 
heart, that touch the heaven-side of our 
being and leave with us vibrations of sweet- 
ness and accord. 

In contrast to these dreams of goodness 
that enlarge our life, comes a besetting con- 
fusion of dream that shakes us and disturbs 
the serenity of the soul — pitiful nightmares, 
harassing delusions which Mercutio says 

— are the children of an idle brain 
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy — 

or of thought that has wrongly possessed us, 
or of mental habit unguarded by superior in- 
tention — inflictions of evil that should not 
come, or be remembered, and that good 
[16] 



The Gates of Day 

people should never rise from sleep to re- 
hearse. 

This dreaming is nothing deep. It is ordi- 
nary and even when agreeable is but a su- 
perficial disturbance of conditions that are 
best for us. It is therefore wise that this 
drift of night-drama should cease and that 
we should have the habit of deep and dream- 
less sleep, forgetful of people and things as 
we know them by day, and, in general, un- 
broken even by higher visions. 

There is, however, an experience far and 
away beyond anything that can be literally 
repeated as dream, when in profound silence, 
in a region outlying all that belongs to day, 
and in a condition that we recall as dream- 
less, we realize a deep and subtle relation to 
life in its infinite quality. In this greater 
range of being we see and know without ef- 
fort, yet with great capacity; and for the 
time we are satisfied. 

What we perceive and learn in these far- 
thest visions of reality we cannot tell. More 
impression than fact, it remains with us a 
memory true and precious but one that re- 
cedes from effort to express it. Sometimes at 
waking from such dreams an influence will 
[17] 



The Gates of Day 

be palpably about us, but will fade as we at- 
tempt its analysis. Sometimes after hours of 
day-life do we remember suddenly, or slowly 
and hauntingly, that in sleep we did realize 
some great experience, that something heav- 
enly enveloped us, that for a time we went 
far, and were among great powers, in light, 
or at some shrine of glory. Brief drifts 
of guidance return as if to remind us of 
greatness in ourselves; of the movement of 
destiny that should not be delayed by absorp- 
tion in petty things, or by too close question- 
ing of mortal irregularities, or too great a 
care for earthly results. A sense of things 
stately, calm, and tender flashes into memory 
at instants of need, and for a moment in the 
midst of affairs we recall a season of en- 
lightenment, knowledge, and rest in the night 
before that in wisdom lays a check, or adds 
an impulse to the word or the act of the mo- 
ment. Like children remembering a moth- 
er's injunction, we realize at heart a touch, 
a command, tender and for our protection; 
something known only to ourselves which we 
trust and rejoicingly obey. It recalls the 
prophet : " Ye shall have a song in the night, 
when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness 

[18] 



The Gates of Day 

of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to 
come into the mountain of the Lord, to the 
Mighty One of Israel." 

By this dim-veiled memory of night-ab- 
sence and communion, as by nothing else that 
can come into life, we recognize a circle of 
being greater than this visible world, al- 
though one with it; and the consciousness 
that, in sleep, we are thus instructed as to 
issues of life and replenished with power to 
meet them, gives us a new and larger sense 
of our own presence and relationship. By the 
experience we have found ourselves out; we 
have touched our own individuality; we have 
found it not commonplace but sensitive and 
full of response. In the night this spirit of 
ourselves, buoyant as youth in its exalted mo- 
ments, has said to its teachers, " Lo ! Here 
am I." Insight and recognition have reas- 
sured us and we have had the utmost of re- 
freshment. 

These differing conditions of mind and 
heart revealed by observation, show that our 
sleep is not a simple state, but changeable. 
The results of sleep are manifest by day, and 
we cannot consider day and night without 
wishing the best to prevail. How shall we 
[19] 



The Gates of Day 

have it so? Treasure is valueless except it 
be at work in the open field of human need 
The night gives; the day demands; and it is 
ours to decide what shall be. 

The question begins with morning. Sleep 
is the exercise of higher consciousness, but 
against this the earth-life seems to set itself 
to undo us. At the pillow it waits and as 
again says Sir Thomas Browne, " It is wak- 
ing that kills us and destroys those spirits 
that are the house of life.'' 

It is true in many cases, that at no 
hour in the day are the demons of lassitude, 
despondency and, above all, fear of heart, so 
strong against us as in the morning. Dark 
spirits, gathered while we slept, they have re- 
garded our departure into peace as inimical 
to themselves and in conclave they make in- 
sidious approach to shatter the aromas that 
sustain the soul and to deplete us of our new- 
found life. As we waken we often, with no 
especial reason, seem to leave peace behind. 
A dim sense of earth-weight, care, and gloom 
makes us long to drop back, blank and hid- 
den, until we summon resolution and sense 
of duty to our aid, and, whatever our 
feelings, assume the ways of day. 
[20] 



The Gates of Day 

These influences which work between our 
degrees of being depress us, and because of 
them first hours of day may be hard and the 
breakfast table a service where weakness 
and desolation insist upon sitting with us. 
Politeness restrains discord, but it is a cru- 
cial hour when not even family prayers have 
proved potent to cheer the house. At that 
early moment home and the world are to 
be harmonized for a new day. Inspiration, 
sympathy, and wisdom should gather in sup- 
port, for in reality this morning process is 
the yoking of the interior will of the soul to 
the exterior will of the mind; it is setting 
heart and brain to work together. Each, 
after sleep, has to adjust itself and both need 
help. 

This adjustment is possible, for, in the 
higher thought of to-day, the soul, by right 
of birth, is master in the house of life. Not 
as a minor guest, or as a stranger wait- 
ing in some anteroom within — a sugges- 
tion of life hereafter — nor as a vague 
essence to be spoken of under breath, do 
we now consider the soul, but as the 
man himself who lives in a body born of 
Nature that he may thereby discover him- 
[21] 



The Gates of Day 

self and, as body, mind, soul, and spirit, 
express himself in human character. To the 
mind and the body, the soul, as it stands 
within them, is a reservoir of power, and to 
have control and use of that power is to 
live. The way of growth and accomplish- 
ment leads inward; and to take that path 
and go as far as we have vision is to move 
toward the Holy Spirit. " The Father who 
dwelleth in me, He doeth the works," is our 
final phrase. 

Historically, through lack of this conscious- 
ness of near relation, sorrow a thousand- 
fold has been man's portion; for not a God 
afar off is the First Cause of our complex 
life, but He who cries, " My son, give me 
thy heart." Man is not separate; he is a 
part of the Divine Whole. We forget this 
and through isolation grow wretched; but 
there is the way back, for the soul at its 
working station between the Spirit and Na- 
ture can hear the inner speech and bear its 
message outward to the mind. Then shall 
the heart, superior and steadfast, sing — Lift 
up your heads, O ye Gates — and harmony 
and clearness shall prevail within us. Life 
still presses from without and we have our 

[22] 



The Gates of Day 

troubles, yet all problems hold their solution 
within themselves, and if we will but regard 
and accept the flow of power from within, as 
after its own law it wells up and directs itself 
toward advantage, we discover and learn to 
lean upon its greatness. 

To return to the morning, in this high es- 
tate where victory invites and defeat besets 
us, the day, strong and demanding, should 
not be defrauded. It has its rights. Equa- 
nimity, poise of heart, quietude of nerve, 
and serenity of mental action, with ability to 
discard and avoid things wasteful belong to 
day-service. These attitudes of life come as 
the result of sleep or soul-waking, and to 
keep and to apply them but a touch is needed 
— a quiet thought, a gentle word, a sugges- 
tion kindly put in place of bald statement, 
a happy silence, a conscious thought in the 
room, of the Spirit latent in everyone. This 
is our city of refuge, our strong tower, our 
sanctuary. To find the key thereto, which 
is the sense of God within us, the recogni- 
tion of the Divine in the human, each of us 
must go singly, as he went to sleep, and must 
return from within himself as one who holds 
at heart the quality of life that is needed. 
[23] 



The Gates of Day 

This look inward is saving grace. Our 
spirits rise, we recover ourselves. We have 
taken a breath of our own air on some hill- 
top of the heart, a breath of Paradise. We 
have been back to something very old, to 
the best in life, to the help that the day's 
work demands. How shall we keep it near? 
What time have we for vision of things un- 
seen? 

Our minds revert to evening. A time for 
ending things it seems; an hour for drop- 
ping off responsibility and being taken care 
of. And so it is and no thought should 
make it less : and is there not in the evening 
hour an essential character and inner rela- 
tion all its own that brings this quality of 
spirit to us and do we yet know it very well, 
and may it not hold some significant force 
that if better known and loved would yield 
us enlightenment and power? 

We make our discoveries in the house of 
habit. Here we have ways of our own, 
ways of body and mind that we repeat easily 
and which we can read as signs of our ways 
of thought — and thought it is that builds the 
house. Here then, having in mind the ar- 
rival and demand of morning, we may study 
[24] 



The Gates of Day 

ourselves. In exterior things our routine is 
much the same. At night we hang away our 
evening clothes. Sometimes we lay in order 
for dressing every article that morning will 
call for. At night we brush and cleanse and 
anoint us for to-morrow's eye, and by the 
homely physical order we find ourselves com- 
posed and better ready for sleep. 

Within this external doing we have also 
a mental process that we follow along cus- 
tomary lines, sometimes with intention or 
often without. As evening closes we drift, 
lines of thought come to their own end; 
happy or sad we linger aimlessly; we read 
some trivial or fascinating, worthy book. 
We seem to have no more to do, a sense of 
coming ease and security draws us, and so 
pleasing is it that we even hasten to bed lest 
care should return and keep us from sleep- 
ing. We may or may not go deeper into 
life. We are perfectly free and our faces 
are toward unconsciousness no matter how 
we go. 

The late evening is thus our hour of sim- 
plicity and indulgence, but in reality it 
is not a break. In our evolution we have 
learned that in existence, throughout all cir- 
[25] 



The Gates of Day 

cumstance and condition and all exchange of 
state, sleeping and waking, two principles 
prevail: one that life is continuous, that the 
threads run unbroken from end to end; and 
the other that the weaving of our life-work 
and design goes on while we are asleep, and 
may then be carried far toward its destined 
conclusion. Because of this constructive 
principle and method of growth, we are 
shown that much may be accomplished by 
our own intention, if before sleep comes upon 
us we put our affairs into the hands of our 
own higher powers. 

This appeals to self-interest. We wish to 
complete our designs; and if the evening is 
so related to life as to be fraught with op- 
portunity for our advancement, we can ac- 
cord it recognition and be glad. For assur- 
ance as to this we have experience to recall 
and the consideration that, in all ages in 
truth, many thoughtful minds have given to 
the matter. Moreover, our evenings lie be- 
fore us, and what we have not as yet pon- 
dered upon and tried, awaits questioning and 
will answer. 

To speak, however, of what we know — by 
day we send energy out into the world of 

[26] 



The Gates of Day 

Nature and man. Hand and brain work to- 
gether to organize thought and ally it with 
world-life. Something attracts us, an idea 
wakens, we reply, we make, we do — energy 
culminates in action and result, and by the 
process we clear our minds and are ready 
for the next thing. At night we are tired. 
We turn from result to cause, from use of 
energy to energy itself, from Nature toward 
God. In contrast to the deliberate work of 
day, our attitude and work at night seem in- 
voluntary, but higher thought teaches that 
this process should still be directed to move 
with the plan and movement of life as a 
whole, and that the mind of day should be 
set in connection with the powers that work 
by night, so that their growth may be in 
unison and that more work may be done. 

By day we know ourselves to be plainly 
under limitation. At night this sense of 
routine loosens and within us something else 
rises, not reiteration of day-life but a stir of 
thought or impulse that is new. We may 
not be trained to give heed, yet so strong is 
life and so quick to present itself in new 
ways, that in spite of ourselves we are made 
aware that at evening something waits, 
[27] 



The Gates of Day 

calls, or presses for attention. It may be 
some intelligent word relating to things 
outside, an idea, a perception from our 
own creative center deep within us; or it 
may be simply the insistence of growth 
from within; the appeal of the Spirit for 
recognition; a soul eagerness that knows 
its hour, that has messages important to de- 
liver and receive, that would remind us to 
speak to it before we sleep; that fears to be 
forgotten, yet, in spite of its own urgency, 
must wait upon our audience call. For it 
is true that at this moment, while we are 
still awake, the mind of day remains in au- 
thority and has control as to all exchange 
of intelligence, to grant or to deny. 

The life within then must wait; for by 
this means of consent and refusal our con- 
centric degrees of being maintain their re- 
lation one to another, and responsibility is 
thrown upon the external mind which is here 
for training in its use of power. As this 
outward mind decides then, and directs, is 
knowledge as it wells up from within us 
allowed to speak or compelled to be silent; 
and we hold in our hand our own loss or 
gain. 

[28] 



The Gates of Day 

Very often, absorbed otherwise, we refuse 
entertainment to what stirs within at this 
night hour; but we do not thereby acquire 
peace of mind. For brief and ignoring as 
we may be, if, in some mood listless, de- 
pressed, or unheeding we find the knock at 
the inner door alien to inclination or too 
much trouble, and turn to sleep with no re- 
ply, we are not let alone. The disappoint- 
ment of the soul does reach us, conscience 
does speak, and a hollow sense of displeas- 
ure with ourselves, with life and the way 
of things, for the moment at least makes us 
abject and miserable, if it does not, as may 
be, go the length of waking us up. We bury 
our heads, but we have refused the spirit 
of life its good moment with us and we 
know it. In the morning, too, when we 
awaken we are aware of something wrong, 
and at times, like the child who to relieve 
his heart confesses that last night he did 
not say his prayers, we admit to ourselves 
that last night we did not drink the water 
of life before sleeping, but by repulse shat- 
tered its crystal drops into disappearing 
mist. 

And yet acceptance of our own good is 
[29] 



The Gates of Day 

not hard. When in this circle of greater life 
we wish to help the powers that while we 
sleep work for us, we have but to take time 
and be still, physically still and restful, with 
an empty head and a listening heart. At 
this inner door we have the right to listen 
and thereby we hear good of ourselves. It 
is our place of light and peace, our most 
intimate affair. With that door open we 
make connection with all that we are. In 
stillness looking inward, we feel that we are 
a part of the whole of creation, that the only 
real question is how to make the life that 
is ours individually a harmonious part of 
the whole. 

To think of this is to think great thoughts, 
yet if rightly read this sense of the greater 
life, with its own plan inborn and persistent, 
does not alienate us from day or impose a 
burden. It gives us strength of heart. It 
is revelation of the grandeur of our birth 
and inheritance, a return to the mind of ideal 
thoughts and feelings that were born with 
us and at times have risen to make them- 
selves heard above the din of thought and 
the world. 

It cannot come to us, this vision of the 
[30] 



The Gates of Day 

larger life, until, shutting out clamor and dis- 
cord, we give it time and place; yet such is 
the power of being that at the call of the 
heart, when we really wish — 

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 

Which brought us hither, 

Can in a moment travel thither — 

and this moment for flight, swifter than 
wireless, in, to the center of being and back 
to external consciousness, the soul should 
have given to it each night lest something 
that craves expression, something of guid- 
ance and beauty, should be lost to us and to 
the world without. 

In this night preparation not much is 
asked of the mind, tired with the day's de- 
mand. It is work for the heart mostly. 
Still, even as we rule the hours of day, so 
with sleep before us should we use our high 
prerogative and decree that the best shall 
be done for us at night. This indeed is 
wishing; and when we come to that prov- 
ince where all is possible, limitation fades 
and we feel the touch of greatness upon us. 

Thoughts of some kind go with us into 
sleep. At times they keep the tone of day 
[31] 



The Gates of Day 

and lead and govern our whole night con- 
dition; and since quality grows over night, 
it is unwise, even dangerous for us, all har- 
ried and worn, to make ready for sleep with 
no higher consciousness, or to tumble into 
bed heavily and unguardedly; for out of that 
evening gloom and disorder may come to- 
morrow's failure, unrelated apparently but 
important and in truth a growth from our 
own night-sown and day-blooming vibrations 
of life. 

Indeed, those who have observed and 
tested this are sure that no habit is of more 
importance than the choice of thought and 
the shaping of desire to be wrought at night 
by forces that waken while mind and body 
rest. The Power to which we turn is One. 
It is within us. It comes at call. In our 
minds it takes any form we give it — the 
form of any thought, purpose, or intention, 
good or bad. By our choice of thought we 
build character. In the inner kingdom then, 
as in the outer, we may have a routine — 
first to drop heavy-weights and drawbacks 
such as hate, irritation, petty or even deep 
remembrances of things, wrong enough, no 
doubt, but for that very reason cumberers of 
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The Gates of Day 

the ground, which we had better let die of 
neglect than keep alive with infusion of our 
precious energy — and after that " Get thee 
behind me " — to choose the best that we can 
think of, realizing that what we summon to 
us will stay and grow over night. 

It is comforting to forget things destruc- 
tive, it inspires us to know that we have 
important things to do with life universal. 
For these, at night we should listen. To 
listen seems at first not easy. The mind of 
day is talkative. It breaks out unaware, and 
because it is noisy we yield to it. But soul- 
magic is instantaneous, and we have only to 
turn away and think of what we want; we 
can always wish. 

A society woman is quoted as saying that 
before sleeping, no matter what inclined her 
otherwise, she always composed her face into 
smiling serenity. This nightly grace was for 
her looks in the morning. With the same 
principle of self-preservation we turn to 
things inwardly constructive. Like " fine 
linen, clean and white," we lay out for 
next day's need some friendly, well-centered 
thoughts. As masters in the house we order 
what shall be. Strength and calm are to be 
[33] 



The Gates of Day 

ours, idle and wearing dreams shall be for- 
bidden, confusion shall not come nigh us, 
and we must sleep as in our judgment is 
best for us. As we lock our doors at night 
in a world where keys are necessary, so we 
bar out intruders from the spheres of heart 
and soul, and as we turn to rest we should 
realize that we only need to ask for what 
in the good of life we most require, to lay 
it out in the light for the angels to see, and 
then to give thanks for the gift. For by 
this recognition and practice the mind, free 
from labor, is in the attitude of assurance 
and reception, and in the double phase of 
life, night shall be restoration and day the 
manifestation of power. 

All this is for to-morrow. In quaint 
speech, " We are somewhat more than our- 
selves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the 
body seems to be but the waking of the 
soul." Our day is Night and Day; power 
and the plane whereon to prove it; the pen- 
dulum swing of our being, granting no mo- 
ment when with impunity we may drop into 
" the bottomless." At every step behavior 
is required, with this penalty for misuse of 
night — to get out of bed wrong foot fore- 
[34] 



The Gates of Day 

most and go wrong-footed, out of step, 
until in the world we get jostled into shape 
again. For day's sake then, for life's sake, 
we must hold the night as time precious and 
creative, as well as for bodily repose; for 
to have the soul in authority is self-preserva- 
tion. 

As we realize the value of the evening 
hour in the administration of affairs, we try 
to secure it to others. It is the right of the 
soul to go in peace to its night work and 
teaching. Sleep erases day's impress and we 
should aid it. Children yet of the " king- 
dom," youth in its struggle for growth, man- 
hood erect and hand to hand with life, age 
that has sorrowed — all should enter upon 
sleep for utmost good. To have this su- 
perior estate in mind, as we say good night, 
disperses mortal feeling and fills the word 
with sincerity. And if there is a choice be- 
tween souls in need, most especially should 
children, who cannot shut out their elders, 
go to bed happy. Not with sins for com- 
pany, his own or those of others, not in fear 
of any dark, physical or moral, or in pain 
of heart, but always as if entering a temple, 
taught to lay aside what has been and to 

[35] \ 



The Gates of Day 

establish goodness, power, and sweetness to 
grow through the night, should a child go to 
sleep. Glad talk, a verse, a song, an up- 
ward glance should be his to help him bring 
back the best for to-morrow. The child 
asleep is not ours, as in the daytime. He 
has gone home awhile and should go with 
our blessing and constructive love. Indeed, 
it is more science than sentiment that vesper- 
song of the heart should grace the door of 
night. It is salutation to our best good; a 
sign of man's comprehension of the peace 
and power that, in the plan of existence, he 
is intended so largely to control. 



[36] 



PART III 



Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven 
So ready is Heaven to stoop to him. 

Francis Thompson. 

In all thou doest let thy prayers ascend 
And to the gods thy labors first commend. 
From them implore success and hope a prosperous 
end. 

Pythagoras, B. C. 500. 

That we should ever weak or heartless be. 
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer 
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee. 

Dress and undress thy soul; if with thy watch 

that too 
Be down, then wind up both. 

Herbert. 

When first thy eyes unveil give thy soul leave 

To do the like; our bodies but forerun 

The spirit's duty. True hearts spread and heave 

Unto their God as flowers do to the Sun. 

Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep 

Him company all day and in Him sleep. 

Vaughan. 



PART III 

IN the progress of life, to prepare hap- 
pily and strongly for night is to prepare 
for morning; and when we waken, if we can 
remember that the transition from sleep to 
waking is a potent moment, we can use it to 
fortify ourselves against the dominance of 
low influences and provide safeguard for the 
day. Sleep is the reminder, the comforter; 
and when, in the morning, courage is as- 
sailed and lack of result mocks us from yes- 
terday, we have but to recall the power of 
night just given, intimate, lofty, and to 
others unknown, which in the face of all 
things brings us the cheer of the possible, 
and which, for love's sake, we should not 
let fall back into itself, nor be put out by 
early light, or noon, or waning day. 

" To sleep," said Amiel, " is to strain and 
purify our emotions, to deposit the mud of 
life, to calm the fever of the soul, to return 
into the bosom of maternal nature, thence to 
re-issue, healed and strong." For increase 
of this solace in life, we have our prayers, 
[39] 



The Gates of Day 

if we have them; and in no case are we more 
likely to hold and cherish this native tradi- 
tion of the heart than when under influence 
of knowledge concerning our whole life, 
waking and sleeping. 

In modern thought the prayer of man to 
God takes less the form of supplication than 
an assured alliance of strength with 
Strength — the recognition of personal power 
as our inheritance, through the kinship of 
life the human with Life the Divine. We 
read an old word from Marcus Aurelius — 
11 Whatever this is that I am, it is a little 
flesh and breath, and the ruling part," and 
comprehend that the ruling part should 
rule; that it should stand on its own feet, 
perceive its own responsibilities, accept its 
duties and fulfill them. In place of sickness 
we should have health, a natural endurance, 
elastic and recuperative, with control of our 
processes of thought, and all this through 
knowledge of the power within, which gives 
itself on every breath we draw. Under the 
new teaching, which is the old returning, 
this power is " the deity which is planted 
in thee " ; the power that cannot beg when 
it remembers its birthright and its range 
[40] 



The Gates of Day 

of action on the inner, immortal side of 
being. 

Seeing that we are already powerful, what 
we ask is the will to continue in growth; for 
energy and will to guide the Spirit to its best 
earthly outcome; and we do not so much 
" say " our prayers as we look God's way 
with confidence and desire, rejoicing in our 
privilege as children. In this light, psalms, 
hymns, and ancient prayers take on new 
meanings, and repeat themselves, half un- 
aware; and as reliance upon the life within 
grows greater, the world of human affairs 
and result grows less a thing apart by itself, 
less alarming and more subject to control, 
until we wonder at our own lapses into weak- 
ness. 

There are, however, those to whom 
prayer remains formal and who, while re- 
ligious in nature and attitude, do not grow 
happily accustomed to praying. And there 
are those who pray when in trouble, or at 
moments burst into appeal. Probably we 
all find the way somewhere, somehow. 
There is virtue, as Jeremy Taylor says, in 
" ejaculatory prayers "; there is time as we 
undress to remember the morning; there 
[41] 



The Gates of Day 

may be gratitude in the touch that lays the 
pillow for the sacrament of sleep, a lifting 
of the heart toward Heaven, a deliberate 
forgetting of the day. For so, with the sigh 
of love for the Great Love on the last wak- 
ing breath, do we ward off evil things that 
seek to hold us back from the world of the 
soul. 

We pray from a sense of relationship. 
In the Lord's Prayer, whose few phrases 
cover every need of the soul, we say Our 
Father; yet even so we differ as to the near- 
ness of the tie. As to method, and by what 
processes the Spirit that has set us here 
works with its children, we have each our 
own idea. But reading from Nature, that 
open book of the soul, we see that in visible 
creation the Divine Mind expresses itself by 
the principle of organization. " All things 
are strung upon one grand chain and there's 
not a stray or vagabond truth in the uni- 
verse." In the solar system, for example, 
the earth, Sun-born, draws its life elements 
from the Sun. Charged with authority, all 
heat and light, magnetism, electricity, gas, 
ether, winds and rains, dews, clouds, rain- 
bows and rays are solar agents, each sent 
[42] 



The Gates of Day 

through space to enact its especial part in 
the great working whole. To this control 
of the Sun, wrought by these innumerable 
agencies, the earth renders obedience — the 
allegiance of its ordered movement, the 
beauty of the mountain, the splendor of the 
forest and the rose. 

This cycle of solar transformation, the 
gift, reception and return of life from the 
Sun to the earth, from earth to the Sun, is 
Nature's theme and song of joy; and to 
some minds it becomes the interpretation of 
life in its higher, human degree. And if 
the law of Nature is the law of the soul, as 
these dreamers hold, then must the love of 
God reach us, not as formless outpour, with- 
out appreciable means of grace, but through 
" ministers of His that do His pleasure," 
and we are not alone in our evolution and 
afar off, but in a realm where in organic 
unity, forces of love and duty play — signs of 
power invisible, near and devoted. 

In this assemblage we, the least of all, yet 
feel ourselves to be placed centrally. This 
is because we are born under spheric law 
and as looking out into Nature we see the 
horizon of earth round about us, so looking 
[43] 



The Gates of Day 

the other way, inward, we find God, in the 
heart, where Love is, with His great circle 
outflowing and including us. 

Through this perception of our manifold 
relation to God comes a charmed sense of 
protecting care. Here are " — angels that 
excel in strength," Archangels, the seven 
sons of God; Sandalphon who waits for our 
prayers, and by this same illuminated way 
of the heart, our guardian angels. In this 
grandeur of relationship we become as chil- 
dren to whom it was said, " Fear not, little 
flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure 
to give you the kingdom." To give awaiting 
acceptance only; wherefore for us, old in 
world-habit and iron-bound refusal of His 
legions, to recognize and cultivate a sense of 
angel presence when the night closes round 
us, is to enter where Love itself invites. 
Thus at the door of sleep all tenderness 
gathers to increase the sum of human affec- 
tion; to comfort and console when we are 
desolate. And we who accept this infinite 
grace and beauty are happiest if we pass 
through its gates not mechanically but with 
recognition and response. 

Our nights, however, as experience teaches, 
[44] 



The Gates of Day 

are not all given to repose. Bereavement 
befalls and grief; while beyond such anguish 
is that bitterer season when conscience holds 
us from sleep and we reach the height of 
sorrow. Then in our need, which is deeply 
spiritual and sends us inward, we come to 
the divine impulse of prayer as the only 
means of expression left to us — the only 
alleviation of suffering. Such hours of night 
go far to make character strong and beauti- 
ful, creating the power of sympathy with 
others and giving us deeper knowledge of 
ourselves as children of the Father; yet in 
very accordance with the teaching of the 
Spirit as life reveals it to us, it is not our 
highest submission to creep into bed, to 
shelter in the dark our drawn, pain-graven 
faces, to sob into slumber. Relief that this 
is, if too prolonged or oft repeated, it has its 
consequence. The new day waits; to it we 
owe our best and for the sake of the living, 
for the sake of the dead, for the sake of the 
life within us that we are carrying back to 
its Source, we are wise to turn to sleep as to 
our comforter, to sleep if we can and to 
so conserve our energy that we may meet 
to-morrow rightly. At night the Divine 
[45] 



The Gates of Day 

Love works with us that by growth we may 
achieve our destiny. We cannot do it alone. 

Except the Lord build the house 

They labor in vain that build it; 

Except the Lord keep the city 

The watchman waketh but in vain. 

It is vain for you to rise up early, 

To sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, 

For so He giveth His beloved sleep. 

For all these reasons should we sleep well. 
Here is our " house of life," the city of our 
inmost being, peopled by our thoughts, with 
its gates, by the design and action of our be- 
ing, set to open out and in, its borders in- 
creasing or shrinking daily as, through our 
own intention or lack of determination, we 
live toward greatness or shrivel toward the 
superficial. Here our two minds have play, 
the two dwelling in us as one; and here, to 
repeat, when sleep calls, the mind of day 
should grow silent, cease from emotion and 
the entertainment of thought and lie passive, 
while the inner, greater mind goes out upon 
its nightly quest of life. To this deeper and 
older part of ourselves release from the re- 
strictions of earth is freedom and delight. 
To gardens of joy it goes, to stand before 
tribunals, to discover its conditions and how 
[46] 



The Gates of Day 

to keep them in tune with the mandate that 
sent it, an immortal spirit, to dwell for a 
time in nature. The farther this journey of 
the soul, the sounder and more refreshing 
is the sleep of the body and of the mind left 
here for repose; and that these things may 
be accomplished " He giveth His beloved 
sleep." 

Sometimes our sleep is broken chiefly and 
happily by a period of wakefulness full of 
consolation and beauty. Exquisitely George 
Santayana says — 

Sleep has composed the anguish of my brain 
And ere the dawn I will arise and pray. 
Strengthen me, Heaven, and attune my lay 
Unto my better angel's clear refrain. 
For I can hear him in the night again, 
The breathless night, snow-smothered, happy, grey, 
With premonition of the jocund day, 
Singing a quiet carol to my pain. 

Slowly, saith he, the April buds are growing 
In the chill core of twigs all leafless now; 
Gently, beneath the weight of last night's snowing, 
Patient of winter's hand, the branches bow. 
Each buried seed lacks light as much as thou. 
Wait for the spring, brave heart; there is no 
knowing. 

In such hours, whether midnight or dawn, 
we lie in quietude looking out to the stars or 
[47] 



The Gates of Day 

into the darkness, and realize that rare influ- 
ences are about us to which we give response. 
In the stillness we recognize more than we 
understand, and gather power for days yet 
to come. 

To hear the clear refrain and to hold and 
keep it at heart beneath day's doings, is to 
have something precious and unforgotten; 
and to be able to recall the calm of night and 
with it to meet the day's intricacy of detail 
and relation, is a means of serenity. The 
forces that in good sleep are active awaken 
the heart; and the sense of these two worlds, 
concentric worlds or spheres of being, in 
which we live, goes far to strengthen per- 
sistence and loyalty in day's duty; to give us, 
through comparison, a larger judgment and 
the faculty of a wise letting go ; and to help 
us to pursue ideals of truth, not with iron 
resistance to earthly conditions, but with the 
habit of hearkening back to catch the key- 
note of our wakening and to keep it through 
whatever adaptation of movement. 

To discover and prove this is to increase 

the circle and atmosphere of life. And in 

this we learn the value of silence. Things 

of the soul are highly individual. They be- 

[48] 



The Gates of Day 

long to the center of being. In this in- 
struction no two hear alike; and while in 
the evolution of character we work together, 
no two have the same work to do. Things 
of the world call us out; they separate and 
scatter. In sleep self-recollection returns — 
knowledge of individuality, and with this we 
begin the day. By its light we give the new 
page of our positive, mortal life its best in- 
terpretation, however inscribed its broken 
type may be; and in loyalty to this higher 
teaching we work alone. In an orchestra 
the players have in common the keynote and 
the beat of the leader, and, beneath all, the 
design of the work — but the score, that is 
for separate reading. Only when all is done 
can comrades recognize that by their sepa- 
rate work, rendering each note apart in its 
own place, have they achieved harmony to 
express the soul. 

Because we are thus individual we have 
need also to go softly and to beware of exal- 
tation lest the new-stored energy fly away. 
Volatile in the extreme, we must be aware of 
our possession but wise in its use, and pro- 
tective, that the first weak, cross word shall 
not puncture the skin wherein we carry this 
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The Gates of Day 

essence of life which was meant to persist to 
day's ending and save us from exhaustion. 

We sleep as children, and even mature 
faces take somewhat the look of youth and 
ease. To waken is an appeal to will. 
Work has begun, and instantly we must take 
control. The brain, the mind of day, is go- 
ing on by itself. It is singing a snatch of 
song, recalling some incident, reciting a 
grievance. But this we may ignore; we 
may, if we are prepared, establish some 
other note for repetition; we may give orders 
to ourselves, we may command the best and 
refuse the inferior. We may have a getting- 
up word, brief but happy and habitual, and 
this as saving grace will assert its strength 
to aid us. 

Suppose that as we waken, or as we stand 
upright, we have the habit of some strong 
address to God. Take for example the old 
words — 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 

the Center from which energy is given. No 
matter by how many removes, or through 
how many agencies our natural and human 
life has come, here it is visibly in all its 
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The Gates of Day 

forms, and each thing that we touch thought* 
fully, flashes answer as a sign of presence — ■ 
Omnipresence. Why should we not recog- 
nize the world we live in — a world of re- 
sults all sprung from the energy that is one. 

Praise Him all people here below. 

Humanity is preparing itself for the day. 
If as this surge of life rose from sleep it 
filled its first half hour with this song of the 
heart, what a vibration beneath the Sun; 
what thrill of love and gladness, gratitude 
and praise from us— all people! 

Praise Him on high, ye Heavenly Host. 

This is the echo we invoke, the response 
mighty and far, but none the less compan- 
ioning as, in our separate rooms, we make 
ready for the day. 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 

" He who is One, the wise call many 
names," says the Veda. And all are one — 
Heavenly Host and here below; single lives 
and Life Itself. 

Any exercise that involves a thought of 
love and power soon, without prompting, as- 
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The Gates of Day 

serts itself; and far from being external, this 
habit of a vital song, used with intention to 
retain the beauty of night and to compel the 
mind to work under control of the soul, will 
have nothing perfunctory about it but will 
come as involuntary, sustaining strength. 

This is but training of thought. It is not 
necessary to impose what we do upon others. 
Time and thoughts are individual and what 
we may find to be our way of life we can 
take silently, with care not to intrude upon 
the hour of another soul — to whom our 
silence may be golden. Our thoughts are 
seen and heard whether spoken or not. To 
control them as they rise within us is to con- 
trol life in its effect upon us and upon others. 
So our morning aspiration, rising from deep 
within us, may have its outcome in quietude, 
losing thereby none of its effect. 

To sing our silent prayers as we prepare 
for night or day is not irreverent. On 
every breath comes life. It is ours to return 
it bearing any character we choose, and the 
habit of using the things of earth that lie 
about us, with recognition of the Power and 
Love that gives us our least possessions, 
uplifts existence. As we dress we can 
[52] 



The Gates of Day 

realize the vastness of energy here and in 
the land from which we have just returned, 
and leave our rooms not as under compul- 
sion, nor as chips launched whether or no 
upon waves, nor yet careless nor proud, but 
with poise, with strength at the center, with 
comprehension of life in its greatness and 
the intelligent sense of a new day after a 
new and lovely night. 

In the morning the experience of night 
has become a memory and heart-conscious- 
ness, and if based upon that we use our 
wakening minds and mold our early thoughts 
to serve as a shrine for the Great Life, 
we can choose our method of expression, 
not after a formula, but in any way 
most native to us; for the spirit of the night 
in its height and depth, like water from the 
spring, will fill any vessel made from what- 
ever clay. 

If we ask what, in such practice, becomes 
of the solemnity of prayer, the kneeling after 
long custom, the still moments of devotion 
loved by the soul, surely for those who on 
any rosary tell their beads, who pray after 
any established form whatever, who with 
any rite set power in place of weakness, 
[53] 



The Gates of Day 

who know the joy of meditation and find 
in contained silence the way of God, these 
notes of evening and morning recognition 
can be no hindrance but a sign of sympathy 
with all ways of worship, and the fullness 
thereof. A part of that fullness, on earth 
and in heaven, are we. Through that unity 
of life, inborn, the heart of man turns to 
the Father and beyond comprehension in- 
deed, yet by a natural movement, our love 
of God is reverence and our deepest rever- 
ence is love that cannot hold Him afar off. 
Mrs. Meynell writes — 

Thou art the Way. 
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, 

I cannot say 
If Thou hadst ever met my soul. 

I cannot see — 
I, child of process — if there lies 

An end for me, 
Full of repose, full of replies. 

I'll not reproach 
The way that goes, my feet that stir. 

Access, approach, 
Art Thou, time, way and wayfarer. 



[54] 



PART IV 



The sisters' pathway is the same unending. 
Taught by the gods, alternately they tread it. 
Fair shaped, of different forms and yet one minded, 
Night and Morning clash not, nor yet do linger. 
Vedic Hymn to the Dawn. 



The higher powers in us, which one day as 
Genies shall fulfil our will, are, for the present, 
muses which refresh us with sweet remembrances. 

Novalis. 



Praised be Thou, O Lord, of all Thy creatures, 
and above all of Brother Sun, my Lord, that doth 
illumine us with the dawning of the Day. For 
fair is he and bright, and the brightness of his glory 
doth signify Thee, O Thou most Highest. 

St. Francis of Assisi. 



PART IV 

THE Gates of Day — of Night and 
Day! At night we go inward, the 
curtain falls, we sleep. Silence and dark- 
ness pass, we waken, and with vague remem- 
brance of the night return to our earthly 
outposts, where spirit, soul, mind, and body 
all in one, we take up whatever under the 
limitation of nature is to be our next ex- 
perience. From dark to light, from inner 
to outer, from spirit to nature we go, and 
each moment, by day and by night, we are 
intrusted with Power. Prompted thereby 
we seek advance. Nothing is too much for 
us ; nothing is enough. What we cannot see, 
hear, and move by our senses we set force 
to doing for us — a current and a wire, 
a flight through the air, the wireless word. 
In our work we are aware of energy at hand, 
exhaustless, waiting only for knowledge to 
supply the form through which it may re- 
veal itself. The mind of the world grows, 
ways of outgo increase, and there is scarcely 
time for rest. 

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The Gates of Day 

Yet said a wise soul, " Sleep and rest 
abundantly; sleep is the benediction of the 
earth. " To go grudgingly to sleep is to be 
shortsighted, for experience teaches, and, if 
we give heed, we realize that in sleep some- 
thing ensues to give the sense of more 
complete being, or that we have grown to 
fill a larger place. We do not, it is true, 
know very much about ourselves ; the greater 
part is yet to be discovered and compre- 
hended, but we look to the attainment of 
some great end as the outcome of our being 
here, the reason for our evolution through 
the ages; and in this conception we can be 
contented with nothing less than alliance with 
things universal. All that we know or 
dream of belongs to us; all that we can 
ever dream of knowing must enter into that 
great relationship. For so far as we yet 
have gone, the perception of the unity of 
life, Divine, natural, and human, is our high- 
est knowledge. It is this which underlies 
our religious aspiration and amidst the aw- 
ful struggle between man and man is our 
support and cheer — our master light. 

In our human life, at the point where we 
now are, the step with which time and event 
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The Gates of Day 

are moving brings men together in a re- 
lation close and continuous, that in years less 
equipped with device for abridging distance 
was impossible. In this world-growth we are 
called to keep pace with affairs, personal and 
international, to adjust ourselves to condi- 
tions, and, as questions arise, to be ready 
with intelligent answer. The action of indi- 
viduals is often far-reaching, and in the 
progress of life it becomes essential that we 
should see our position and be equal to its 
demand, lest we lose the station to which 
we were born and fall behind our rightful 
aspiration. 

It is then merely in the order of life as 
it moves after its own law that we, children 
of Power, should avail ourselves of all our 
advantages. We do not need to go and we 
cannot go out of ourselves to find our Di- 
vine center. Our research is truly for our 
own ideal of being. Veiled in the greatness 
of which we are a part, and in our own 
sense of immortality, the consciousness of 
some depth, some loveliness yet unrevealed, 
is the very core of life from which all dreams 
of grace, beauty, and things desirable rise. 

Hence the need of quiet moments when 
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The Gates of Day 

the Spirit can speak to remind us of Itself, 
for then we have conviction as to the Source 
from which springs our power of initiative, 
and perceive our duty to that point of 
growth within us, as its protectors. In our 
hands, by God bestowed, lie the issues of our 
life, given because we are equal to the 
charge. In life, whatever it be, instead of 
friction we want peace, instead of doubt we 
want clearness, instead of refusal we want 
love. How in keeping then with our knowl- 
edge of the requirements of life and our 
ideas of destiny and the harmony and value 
of day and night it is, that after the paper, 
the novel, the letter, the song, the hour of 
creative work and the good night to those 
about us, we give ourselves the moment for 
remembrance and turn to what Shelley 
calls — 

That Light whose smile kindles the universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That benediction which the eclipsing curse 
Of birth can quench not; that sustaining Love. 

If in this moment we seek companionship, 
to lead the way as it were, we know how 
seers of earth, who through the homeliness 
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The Gates of Day 

of physical life have seen the soul in its high 
place of God, have celebrated that intimate 
dominion and have left behind them, like 
guide-posts on the king's highway, myriads 
of words and sayings. Down the long trail 
from Eastern mystics and early saints to 
modern inspiration, scientific, social, and re- 
ligious, they lie, at hand — a line from some 
old brother of the world, a happy consoling 
psalm, or some familiar hymn — " Abide 
with me." Could He abide were He not 
already there, in the being and heart of 
man? 

The brief season of quietude at night is 
not for mental introversion, arraignment of 
one's self, or long consideration of needs. It 
is leaving all these and going inward to the 
fountain — a greeting to things new and ap- 
proaching — a welcome to the best. The 
knowledge gained in protected night absence 
is to vivify and enlighten hours of day that 
otherwise might be empty or worse; it is for 
education of the will, the guidance of char- 
acter; it is a glimpse of reality, faithful, and 
beyond all happening. It is happiness that 
by its quality leads inward toward the im- 
measurable. Taught thereby, if we do not 

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The Gates of Day 

forget the vision, all time is one and of 
value, to be and to breathe is to touch things 
infinite, and in the distinction that belongs to 
nature and the alternation that we experi- 
ence in life, we go to sleep to get riches and 
return for good spending. 

In the morning there is also one other way 
of thought to consider — when at night we 
have put aside questions that have perplexed 
us as to wisdom in affairs — to do, or that 
greater thing, not to do, and have waited 
for morning intelligence to decide. It is 
worth much to feel clear as to values and 
relations of things, and often over night we 
change our minds. Discrimination has been 
at work. Showing the vanity of cherished 
moods wherein we see motes as jewels, it en- 
lightens judgment. In the morning yester- 
day's waste-basket is hardly worth rummag- 
ing over. Often we have been abused, greatly 
indeed, and we know it, but we do not care. 
We incline to put energy into things new 
and constructive. As one running to a goal 
stops for no brier that may tear him, but 
speeds along, so, ignoring hindrance, we pur- 
sue ideals as they have been renewed by 
sleep; and by fidelity in our own lines we 

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The Gates of Day 

awaken others, bring force and comfort into 
life, and create an atmosphere that stimulates 
growth. 

This morning voice we should hear and 
heed. Simple as breathing, gentle and con- 
tinuous, a light burning softly within, un- 
swayed by winds from without, it is our gift 
of daily bread. Our soul-journey through 
this life is for experience and discovery. As 
day by day the earth, following the Sun, goes 
through space by ways untraversed and to 
her unknown, so the soul, following its Cre- 
ator, moves by a course perpetually new. 
As we go we need guidance, and in the 
morning we open the way of instruction if, 
before we allow affairs to shape themselves 
in thought, we send the waking mind first 
to the Creator, to the Universal Conscious- 
ness, the Heavenly Father, to God, to 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or to what- 
ever Name is to us dearest and best. For 
with that connection made we have a truer 
outlook and judgment than if we begin less 
centrally to find our place in God's great 
sphere of life. 

Because the law of unity and relation is 
written in our hearts, nothing in human ex- 
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The Gates of Day 

istence gives such equipoise as the conscious- 
ness that our garden-bed is a part of the 
whole earth; that our routine is a part of 
world-life; that human life is a part of Di- 
vine Life; that Life is One. At that touch 
of relationship the wear of the chain 
loosens ; thought ranges off to the others — to 
men, to angels, to God, the Center of each 
heart and life, and comes back to steady us 
in well-doing. This security of place and 
relation is inspiration, and apart from what 
science and the church has taught, or rather 
within all frameworks of human expression, 
we hold our intuitive knowledge of who and 
what we are. And this grace and mystery, 
the consciousness of belonging to things uni- 
versal, born with us, in sleep is strengthened. 
In this higher thought, sayings that once 
were merely moral and instructive grow sig- 
nificant and have the spirit of joy. We 
say — 

Lay not thy head 
On prayerless bed, 

because in the circuit of life we are aware 

of our place and for honor of our own being 

upon earth would work with the powers that 

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The Gates of Day 

are for our recuperation and increase to 
produce, within the limits of Nature, a life 
approximate to the ideal that presents itself 
when we look in toward the Spirit. For this 
we hold the moment before sleeping and the 
moment at waking as two pauses in existence, 
two instants of conviction and clear sight 
when we may exchange recognition with all 
that is about us upon the heights of vision 
and ally our inmost being consciously with 
the inner life universal, transcendent, Di- 
vine. So used, these two brief moments be- 
come the dependence and assured possession 
of the soul — seasons for the silent lighting 
of beacons on reef and shoal, for sowing of 
mustard and other precious seed. 

Graciously given these moments come; 
having wings they fly, leaving us meanwhile 
to dwell within the bounds of earth and duty. 
For in our present home, go far as we may 
into the shadow of forgetfulness and repose, 
time keeps the beat of life and directly 

Weaving night hath folded up her woof, 

dawn has foretold the Sun, sleep lightens 

and withdraws her spell, reveille sounds, and 

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The Gates of Day 

we waken to know where we have been and 
go forth to find who shall say what treasure 
Great is the venture, great to meet it is the 1 
heart of man, and by Evening and Morn- 
ing his way is 

— through the Gates into the City. 



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